pauldpickell / realterrain

A minetest mod for importing elevation and landcover rasters as world maps

Real Terrain (v.0.2.1)

A Minetest mod that brings real world terrain into the game (using freely available DEM tiles). Any image can actually be used which allows for WorldPainter-style map creation using any paint program. This is a lightweight version of bobombolo's realterrain mod, focusing on map generation from bitmap raster images only.

Dependencies:

• this mod works out of the box with no libraries when using color BMP rasters
• mod security needs to be disabled (close Minetest and add secure.enable_security = false to minetest.config)

Mod Instructions

• download the zip file and copy the realterrain folder to /minetest/mods/ (remove -master suffix)
• edit the mod settings.lua file to suit your tastes (not required, default settings should work)
• launch Minetest, create a new world, enable mod and launch game to load the demo
• optionally use chat command /generate in game to generate all nodes defined by the DEM raster
• once map is generated from raster images, disable mod and the Minetest engine will generate the rest

Custom Map Instructions

• use any image editing software to "paint" a custom world on two BMP files (dem.bmp and biomes.bmp)
• using gray tones is recommended, but image should be saved as RGB with 24-bit depth and Windows headers
• ensure that dem and biomes images are the same dimensions (however only dem image is required)
• dem.bmp is converted to an 8-bit heightmap with elevation range from 0 (black) to 255 (white)
• biomes.bmp is likewise read as 8-bit with pixel values rounded to one of 17 biome definitions.

Biome Definitions

Biomes are defined in settings.lua and are represented by one of 17 values between 0 and 255, and 3 extra values for hard-coded biome definitions. Using the following color values in biomes.bmp will result in the corresponding biome:

8-Bit Value	Hex Color	Biome
0	#000000	Lake / Pond
16	#101010	Beach
32	#202020	Grassland
48	#303030	Bushland
64	#404040	New Deciduous Forest
80	#505050	Old Deciduous Forest
96	#606060	New Coniferous Forest
112	#707070	Old Coniferous Forest
128	#808080	Savannah
144	#909090	Desert
160	#A0A0A0	Marsh
176	#B0B0B0	Tropical Rainforest
192	#C0C0C0	Snowy Grassland
208	#D0D0D0	Tundra
224	#E0E0E0	Boreal Forest / Tiaga
240	#F0F0F0	River / Stream
255	#FFFFFF	Cobblestone Road
256	N/A	Ocean
257	N/A	Alpine
258	N/A	Sub-alpine

Information about DEM files can be found on the repo this was forked from.

Changelog

0.2

• Added Minetest Game 5.4.0 biomes to the schems folder, moved old ones to old_schems folder
• Set up new biomes to work

0.1

• Changed settings.lua and init.lua to remove errors
• Added two maps of my own